Captain's Log

February 28, 2003

Hello all,

After 18 years in the Hotel and Restaurant Industry I have more than a few stories of ' foreign objects ' being found in guests meals. These invariably end up in a complaint that makes it to the Manager. ( Often this was me ) Then of course you have to apologise, no smiling allowed as sometimes a little wiggly worm saying " hello " from a guests salad is quite amusing, ascertain how aggrieved the guest is and decide on compensation, also while all the other guests in the restaurant wonder what the reason the manager is looking at in one of their fellow diners plates !!

So what made me think of these past experiences, well I found some shrimp in my engine strainer. 3 little, smelly, shrimp had some how made their way through the salt water intake and into the strainer that keep junk out of the water pump, that cools the engine. When I saw these shrimp along with quite allot of seaweed, the first thing that came to mind was that they were out of place and I said out loud, " Waiter there is a shrimp in my Engine ".

I guess I have been at sea too long, but one must find humor anywhere possible, because after last night with winds from 25 - 45 kts occurring in time periods of 2 minutes along with 30 degree wind shifts and you get a little ' punchy ' from lack of sleep and trying to avoid the infamous, Southern Ocean full on crash gybe. So advice to my fellow competitors and of course Kojiro who will probably find some way to add these too his daily meals, check your water strainers for shrimp as they do not need to be ending up in your water pump.

Regards,

Alan